Jobless Claims Drop More Than Expected

[Freddie Stubbs]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of Americans lining up for an initial week of jobless benefits fell sharply last week, the government said on Thursday in a better-than-expected report suggesting the labor market is improving.

First-time claims for state unemployment aid, a rough guide to the pace of layoffs, plunged 22,000 to 353,000 in the week ended Dec. 13 from a revised 375,000 in the prior week, the Labor Department (news - web sites) said.

The drop brought claims back to the 2-3/4 year low they hit in early November.

Wall Street economists had expected claims to drop to 365,000 from the 378,000 originally reported for the Dec. 6 week.

more: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=568&ncid=749&e=1&u=/nm/20031218/bs_nm/economy_jobless_dc

[lumpy]

1. Bully bully

Does that include the workers whose unemployment comp has run out?

[bearfan454]

12. That is exactly what it is.

[rustydog]

15. When your benefits run out...

Unka Sam considers you have found employment. Whether you have or not. A Reagan-era carryover to make his economic situation look a little brighter.

[Frodo]

20. Link please?

'Cause it just ain't so.

[grannylib]

2. Next week they will revise the numbers upwards with no fanfare...Minnesota

reported major job losses yesterday and other states are suffering the same...these numbers are being played with on paper to provide the results that the Bushistas want; it's all smoke and mirrors. If the economists would get their asses out on the streets and see what's happening in the real world we would not be getting these rosy fake scenarios.
The job market dwindles day by day; this is not a recovery; it's not even a jobless recovery; it's a job-loss "recovery."

[ze_dscherman]

11. Revision

The problem of constant revision has been adressed publicly some days ago. Seems to be a mistake in the gathering of the statistics. Last weeks numbers were actually revised down!

Problem is, these numbers are only "newly unemployed" and don't cover those whose benefits have run out, those who were forced in a badly paid part time job. Actual unemployment is much higher.

[midnight armadillo]

21. It's not called the Dismal Science for nothing

If the economists would get their asses out on the streets and see what's happening in the real world we would not be getting these rosy fake scenarios.

Actual physical observation of the economy is just not part of economics. Remember, this is the field where Daniel Kahneman and Vernon L. Smith won the Nobel in 2002 for daring to consider psychology and lab experiments in their economic theories. 2002! You'd think someone would have thought to try this...oh...about 100 years ago...

[Military Brat]

3. Will this figure be revised also, like all the ones before it?

Every time they come up with anything positive, it seems we have to turn the stone over and see what crawls out from beneath it.

Irrespective of my cynicism, I find no comfort in learning that a third of a million people are newly unemployed, especially near Christmas.

[qanda]

4. Maybe the Grinch got a heart

And decided not to lay people off so close to Christmas.

[54anickel]

13. From my own experiences with companies in the area, this is sort of

true, but not because they have a heart. December layoffs do not offer much benefit for the year end or quarter end books, but can be costly in employee moral and loss of productivity. You'll tend to see higher layoffs at the end of the 3rd quarter, beginning of the 4th quarter. December is too late for those on a calendar year basis.

If things are still bad you will again see a rise in February, March time frame.

[CMT]

5. Funny how everything is turning around just in time for the election

year.

[cprise]

6. Management is too busy shopping to hand out pink slips just now

.

[pippin]

7. lining up for an initial week of jobless benefits

note initial week. No mention of how many are currently collecting or the two million who will not be getting supplemntal benefits after their initial benefits run out thanks to the chimp.

[54anickel]

10. Continued claims, the number of people out of work for a week or more,

rose to 3.39 million for the week ended Dec. 6, the latest data available, from a revised 3.331 million the prior week.

http://money.cnn.com/2003/12/18/news/economy/jobless/index.htm

[moondust]

8. Gee, that's only another third of a million.

Hell, that's almost nuthin.

[tlcandie]

9. The thread started in GD about who was jobless was frightening!

Not only those w/o but the lengths of time these folks have been w/o jobs...

I don't care what they say or print from this regime...it isn't correct and one day after all this hussle/bussle when there isn't anything else like the holidays to shuffle data the truth will come out.

Let's see how they cook the numbers after January.

[Zgrrl]

14. Don't pop the champagne corks yet...

I have an opinion about current unemployment figures. The other day I was at the mall in my (fairly small) town of about 60K people. I stopped in at the Victoria's Secret because a friend of mine had told me that she had taken a part-time seasonal job there to get some extra holiday money and I wanted to see if she was there. I went up to the saleswoman at the counter and asked if my friend was working that shift. The woman (who looked to be about 18) told me that she didn't know my friend, was not familiar with her name, had no clue... because that store had hired 20 new people for the holiday season.

So just that one store hired 20 people. I bet if I asked all the stores in the mall, they all probably all hired at least one extra person for the holidays, but probably a lot more. If you add up the extra "jobs" created just in that one mall, it probably numbers in the high hundreds. And that's just one mall in one small town in one state. Add it up all across America, and it would seem like things are coming up roses.

Of course, all these jobs are only for the holidays, they pay crap, and they will be vanishing in January. Expect to see (buried) headlines in a month or so talking about unemployment claims suddenly rising.

Meanwhile, I noticed that IBM is going to be slashing something like 4000 jobs and shifting them to...let's see, was it India or China?:mad:

[Triana]

16. all those people ran out their unemployment...

...and are therefore no longer counted as unemployed. Doesn't mean they found jobs. It means they are simply non-numbers now.

Same crap they did in the 80s- early 90s. Just quit counting them by getting them off unemployment (letting it run out) then huge numbers of unemployed simply become uncounted non-nothings.

Convenient, eh? Rethug economics at work...

[Frodo]

22. When do you suppose the stopped counting them?

Got a link?

[area51]

17. Meanwhile ...

... in George W. Hoover's America, homelessness and hunger are increasing for people who either can't get a job or can't get a decent-paying job. (link opens in a new window)

[Sven77]

18. clinton to bush

i was making 25$ an hour during clinton years, under bush im struggling with 8$/hr. yah, tell me about it. :mad:

[Sorcerer3]

19. Jobless claims fallingis excellent!

I'm pleased that the jobless claims are falling. It's good news for america and the economy.

I found this story from Reuters as well:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Manufacturing in the U.S. mid-Atlantic region surged powerfully and unexpectedly in December as new orders jumped to a 23-year high, in one of the clearest signs yet that factories have emerged from a two-year slump

This is excellent news! After reading the other day that inflation was at 38 YEAR LOWS really made me feel good about this economy. It's just what we need.

Hope for the future is much better than lamenting on the disparities of the past.

God Bless America!